Canadian short story writer Alice Munro wonthe Nobel Prize for Literature. Eighty-two-year-old Munro is only the 13thwoman to win the 112-year-old prize．

Munro didn't publish her first collectionof short stories until she was 37 years old, but her stories have always beenwell-received. Lots of her stories share similar themes and characters, buteach story has its own twists and turns.

Even though she's won Canada's most famousliterary award, the Giller Prize, twice, winning the Nobel Prize for Literatureis the cherry on top of Munro's career. “It brings this incredible recognition，both of her and her career，and of the dedication to the short story,”said one person.

Along with the well-respected title comes1.3 million dollars. Munro said everything was “so surprising and wonderful”and that she was “dazed by all the attention and affection that has been comingmy way.”

Munro knew she was in the running—she wasnamed the second-most likely person to win this year's prize, after HarukiMurakami（村上春树）of Japan—but she never thought that she would win.

Munro's win also represents the long wayCanadian writers have come. “When I began writing there was a very smallcommunity of Canadian writers and little attention was paid by the world. NowCanadian writers are read, admired and respected around the globe,” Munro saidon Thursday.

She is technically not the first Canadianto win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but many like to think that she is．In 1976 Saul Bellow, who was born in Quebecbut moved to Chicago when he was still a child, won the prize. Even though hewas born in Canada, he is mostly considered to be an American writer.

“This is a win for us all. Canadians, byour very nature，are not very nationalistic,” said Geoffrey Taylor. “But things like thissuddenly make you want to find a flag．”

She wasn't sure whether she would keepwriting if she won the prize，saying that it would be “nice to go out with a bang. But this may change mymind.”

    Terrafugia Inc. said Monday that its new flying car has completed its first flight, bringing the company closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year. The vehicle — named the Transition — has two seats, four wheels and wings that fold up so it can be driven like a car. The Transition, which flew at 1,400 feet for eight minutes last month, can reach around 70 miles per hour on the road and 115 in the air. It flies using a 23-gallon tank of gas and burns 5 gallons per hour in the air. On the ground, it gets 35 miles per gallon.

    Around 100 people have already put down a $10,000 deposit（定金） to get a Transition when they go on sale, and those numbers will rise after Terrafugia introduces the Transition to the public later this week at the New York Auto Show. But don't expect it to show up in too many driveways. It's expected to cost as much as $279,000. And it won't help if you're stuck in traffic. The car needs a runway.

    Inventors have been trying to make flying cars since the 1930s, according to Robert Mann, an airline industry expert. But Mann thinks Terrafugia has come closer than anyone to making the flying car a reality. The government has already permitted the company to use special materials to make it easier for the vehicle to fly. The Transition is now going through crash tests to make sure it meets federal safety standards.

    Mann said Terrafugia was helped by the Federal Aviation Administration's (联邦航空管理局) decision five years ago to create a separate set of standards for light sport aircraft, which are lower than those for pilots of larger planes. Terrafugia says an owner would need to pass a test and complete 20 hours of flying time to be able to fly the Transition, a requirement pilots would find relatively easy to meet.

    Not many years ago, a wealthy and rather strange old man named Johnson lived alone in a village in the south of England. He had made a lot of money in trading with foreign countries. When he was seventy-five, he gave £ 12,000 to the village school to buy land and equipment for a children's playground.

    As a result of his kindness, many people came to visit him. Among them was a newspaperman. During their talk, Johnson said that he was seventy-five and expected to live to be a hundred. The newspaperman asked him how he managed to be healthy at seventy-five. Johnson had a sense of humor. He liked whisky and drank some each day. "I have an injection (注射) in my neck each evening." He told the newspaperman, thinking of evening glass of whisky.

    The newspaperman did not understand what Johnson meant. In his newspaper he reported that Johnson was seventy-five and has a daily injection in his neck. Within a week Johnson received thousands of letters from all over Britain, asking him for the secret of his daily injection.

    As Amy Hagdorn rounded the corner across the hall from her classroom, she ran into a tall boy from the fifth grade running in the opposite direction.

    "Watch it. Squirt." the boy yelled, as he kept away from the little third grader. Then, with an unfriendly smile on his face, the boy took hold of his right leg and imitated the way Amy limped(跛行) when she walked.

    Amy closed her eyes for a moment.

    "Forget it!" she told herself as she headed for her classroom.

    It wasn't as if he were the only one. It seemed that ever since Amy started the third grade, someone teased her every single day. The tease made Amy feel all lonely.

    Back home at the dinner table that evening, Amy was quiet. Her mother knew that things were not going well at school. That's why Patti Hagdorn was happy to have some exciting news to share with her daughter

    "There's a Christmas Wish Contest on the newspaper, she announced." Write a letter to Santa and you might win a prize.

    Out came a pencil and a piece of paper and Amy went to work on her letter. She wrote:

Dear Santa Claus,

    My name is Amy. I am 9 years old. I have a problem at school. Can you help me, Santa? Kids laugh at me because of the way I walk and run and talk. I have cerebral palsy(脑瘫). I just want one day when no one laughs at me or makes fan of me.

Love

Amy

    The next day, a picture of Amy and her letter to Santa made the front page of the News Sentinel. The little girl's story spread quickly. She asked for such a simple, yet remarkable Christmas gift-just one day without being teased.

    During that unforgettable Christmas season, over two thousand people from all over the world sent Amy letters or cards of friendship and support.

    Amy did get her wish of a special day without being teased. Additionally, teachers and students in her school talked together about how bad tease can make others feel.

    Craft (手工艺）is becoming a heritage industry — but a record of disappearing skills might just come in handy in the future.

    Mr. Lobb (of John Lobb the bootmaker) mentioned that custom clothing and shoe-making were once the norm for everyone. How come，then，today a pair of normal Lobbs would set you back over £2,000? The price has obviously gone up because of lack of competition and higher wages，but would custom clothing once again be affordable to all if the demand was there? Do we just wave goodbye to these skills，or should we fight to maintain them?

    The disposable (一次性的）culture we “enjoy” today has existed in our life for almost two generations now. We like our products to be made by either a robot or invisible，cheap hands so that we can accumulate them cheaply and frequently. The concept of “craft” is something that's now largely considered to be strange，and seems to be limited to museums and dusty, independent shops. Hobby crafts such as knitting do undergo revivals (复兴)from time to time，but I think that's because they are seen as short-lived fashionable leisure pursuits rather than a craft worthy of revivals on a commercially feasible (可行的)scale.

To drive a revival in any of these crafts, you would probably need to apply the same marketing techniques that are used to sell any other items today. The consumer must believe that they just have to have it. If they don't have it now, it will either go up in price or go out of fashion — both reasons enough in themselves for a shopper to act.

    But does it finally matter if these skills will no longer serve any practicable use in the decades to come? I don't know the answer to that，but I have long thought it would be a good idea if we “banked” these skills somehow，just as we are not attempting to do with seeds. You just never know whether we'll need them in the future. Maybe it's time to establish a worldwide network of volunteers to record，through the written words and videos，as many of these dying skills as possible. Actually, a rough look on YouTube fills me with hope that an army of willing volunteers is probably out there already and just needs someone or something to gather them together.

Guided Tour of Harry Potter London Locations

If you are a fan of Harry Potter, the Wizards London Walk is a perfect way to spend a couple of hours in London. You will get to see more than 10 filming locations from the Harry Potter movies. 

The tour features Harry Potter London film locations Meanwhile, you also have a chance to explore famous London landmarks and attractions like St Paul's Cathedral and Millennium Bridge and Big Ben. Along the way you'll have plenty of chances to take lots of pictures and see the filming locations up close. 

Come and explore Harry Potter London filming locations on our magical tour

Please also note:

This tour is not accessible for wheelchair users or for parents with prams 

Anyone who is 17 years old or younger must be accompanied by adults on all tours.